Some books are so good that they make you forget what century you are living in. And who you are and what you do. You forget to make dinner. You forget to feed the dog.

This week I've been rereading one of my all time favorite novels -- Jane Eyre. It is an amazing book for me because not only do I forget everything else but the emotional ups and downs of the passionate unconventional heroine are truly tremendous.

And that's exactly how I felt last night watching Watson on Jeopardy!. Oh wow, the Yorktown IBM building looks so good. Oh great, Watson is doing so well. Oh no, Watson missed that one. Do I really want humans to lose?

As you saw last night, efficiency is important for Watson. And the same is true for today's IBM storage announcements. Storage efficiency is the goal - store less, move data to the right place, get more from what’s on the floor. The announcements include ability to:

Reduce risk with IBM FastBack for Storwize V7000, an IP-based solution for disaster recovery and business continuity

Read here for all the exciting news about IBM systems announcements today.

I've read that some viewers thought the IBM Jeopardy! challenge was wonderful, others thought it was more of an infomercial. But I think that everyone agrees that one of the most entertaining parts is when Watson gets it wrong. And you realize that even 90 POWER7 systems can miss a nuance. But then again, how many humans actually learn from their mistakes?

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The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

The right way to make a performance claim: Highlight all hardware and software used and give a result that can be compared to something in order to know whether it is a good result.

The wrong way to make a performance claim: Oracle published three press releases today claiming "extreme performance" using their financial services software on Exadata X2-2 systems. Here's what you need to know:

Remember that these press releases focus on Oracle software running on Oracle hardware with no discussion of implications when you use anything else.

Note that the Exadata system highlighted only handles the database tier of the configuration. Oracle didn't exactly focus on the fact that a Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 is required for the application tier.

We are presented with performance results in these press releases that we are supposed to be impressed with. 69 minutes, 1 hour 29 minutes, "only 4 hours 45 minutes." How in the world do we know if these are even good results? Did the 4 hours and 45 minutes take 2 hours or 10 hours last week? And on what configuration?

Forgive me, for I have doubts.

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The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

I know who I'm going to put my money on. But whatever happens, remember what we always told the kids. It doesn't really matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. And Watson sure does play it well.

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The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.